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> A good article on Native Pollinators
> http://www.wired.com/2015/04/youre-worrying-wrong-bees/
I thought the article was overly alarmist and sensationalized because it
didn't provide a scientifically legitimate basis for "worry" about the fact
that 50 percent of Midwestern native bee species disappeared from their
historic ranges in the last 100 years. e.g. did not list any examples of
specific crops or wild native plants in the Midwest that have suffered fruit
or nut yield declines or seed set shortfalls due to the extinction of specific
species of native pollinators or because of reductions in the overall abundance
of native bees.
The article mentions canola, apple, blueberry, squash, watermelon, etc.
crops, but does not cite National Agricultural Statistics Service statistics
that show the yields of any of them have been in decline. I thought the
article was ideological in nature; i.e. it seemed to promote a "guilty until
proven innocent" ideology about neonicotinoids; i.e. that we should be
deeply worried about the potential impact of crops grown from
neonicotinoid coated seed on wild native bees before anyone has even
noticed and reported impacts.
I also thought the article was unbalanced; e.g. on the one hand it cited
Maj Rundlöf, et al. 2015. Seed coating with a neonicotinoid insecticide
negatively affects wild bees. Nature: doi:10.1038/nature14420 as evidence
that wild bee density was 50% lower in a canola field grown from clothianidin
coated seed, but did not mention that Dr. David Fischer of Bayer CropScience
faulted the Rundlof study for using unrealistically large amounts of the
pesticide — 2.5 times what is applied in the United States. He called it "an
overdose."
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/popular-pesticide-hurts-wild-bees-major-field-study-30505109?page=2
Paul Cherubini
El Dorado, Calif.
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